READING the article about Alan and Tracy Dobbs, who fear eviction from their family home due to Bolton Council’s policy on succession really made me angry.
I have recently lost my wife. We were joint tenants of this house for more than 43 years.
Last week, I was told that the tenancy would automatically revert to me alonI was asked to sign papers to say that I agreed to the succession, and that I acknowledged that no further succession would be possible.
I signed these papers, I believe, while the balance of my mind was disturbed, due to the very recent death of my wife.
I signed them believing I had to do so in order to retain the tenancy.
But how can I be deemed to have succeeded to the tenancy when I have been the tenant for the past 43 years?
What has happened is that my wife’s name has been taken off the rent book. This is a simple amendment, not a change of tenancy. I am still the tenant.
The same was most likely the case when Tracy’s mother died, and the tenancy went to her father alone.
There was no succession, just an alteration on the rent book.
Tracy should, morally and legally, be the first succession to the property, in my book, and would be if those in power gave a fig.
Brian Derbyshire Ribchester Grove Bolto
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